To set up your local blockchain where you can deploy contracts in a development environment, you can use Ganache, which is part of the Truffle suite and can be found in the docs above.

To deploy to testnet, you can use one of the public testnets (ropstein, rinkeby, kovan, etc). Truffle docs show you how to deploy to each of these; however, they each have their own way of acquiring ETH. I find the rinkeby faucet to be the easiest: https://faucet.rinkeby.io/ - this will require a public social media account.

Cryptocurrencies are not illegal in India, it’s just RBI banned banks and entities regulated by it to provide services to any individual or business entities dealing in cryptocurrencies. You can still buy them in peer to peer trading services.
Moreover learning about cryptocurrencies don’t even require holding actual coins. Every project has testnets and faucets providing testnet coins.